I watched DS9 when it first came out and I was... underwhelmed.
But then I caught a few episodes in syndication, and it seemed pretty good -- the captain shaved his head; there was this guy (Gul Dukat?) who had really interesting conversations; there seemed to be action everywhere.
Is there a season where I can start without all of the boring stuff?
The first season of every single sci-fi show is cringe awful. TNG, DS9, VOY, BAB5... every single one.
After season one, things get so much better.
Sadly, this includes B5: Crusade.
Galactica s1 was the best. Every episode raised the stakes. Otherwise you're correct.
The Kazon makeup from Voyager looked so terrible, as if on shoot day they realized they hadn't actually designed anything about how they should look so they used leftover bits left around the wardrobe and fx shops.